He doesn’t expect anyone to find him—not here, not like this. His emotions are too wild and untamed and he has no idea how to reel them back in successfully. It catches in his throat and the darkness swarms around him in wild, bucking waves. The magic is unspooled from him, the trees still vibrating with the shock wave that he had sent through them, and he grits his teeth as he tries to gain control.
But whatever little ground he gains is fleeting.
The sorrow spears through him, sizzling like lightning struck, and he can only look toward her with wide eyes, the gold flooding until the irises disappear in its churning depths. “No,” he manages finally, his voice as raw as he feels, the sound as roughened as if he had been screaming for hours. Had he? He doesn’t know, but he knows enough to recognize the startled expression on her face.
Had he made her fear him?
“I won’t hurt you,” his voice is lower now, but still just as pained, each syllable pulled from him with great effort. “I just…” he looks around him to the radius of the blast, the grass flattened and the trees groaning from standing up to the force. “I don’t know,” he drops his head and the shadows begin to stop their frantic movement, crawling slowly back to him and winding up his legs again.
They remain, in part, the area around him still darker than the rest of the river. But it is a less angry darkness now, and part of it detaches from the rest to curl on his back like a small cat—doing its best to comfort him. He glances back up to her and he knows that he should introduce himself or do anything that would be normal in this moment, but he has no words and nothing to say to make this okay.
So he just stares, as devastated as the plant life around him.
so as our grief falls flat and hollow upon a billion blooded seas
all our worst ideas are borrowed (you do and don't belong to me)